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Somebody That We Used to Know

Sadness and happiness, two of the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith’s great themes, were abundant and intertwined at “No Name #1,” a celebration of Smith and his music at the Bowery Ballroom on Saturday night. Most Elliott Smith fans, it’s safe to assume, have had fairly solitary experiences of his music in the years since 2003, listening to him on iPods, haunted by both the fact and the manner of his death. (He died of two stab wounds to the chest, said to be self-inflicted, at his apartment in Los Angeles.) To survey the crowd at the Bowery Ballroom, then, was startling. These people were all here for Elliott Smith; Elliott Smith had been gone for ten years.

Smith’s music is generally considered melancholy—because of its slowness, its gentleness; its lyrics about loneliness and addiction; its song titles, like “Ballad of Big Nothing,” “Stupidity Tries,” “Everything Means Nothing to Me,” and “Miss Misery,” the song that made him famous after its inclusion on the “Good Will Hunting” soundtrack. (He performed it solo, with his acoustic guitar, at the 1998 Oscars: white suit, pale face, greasy-looking hair. The song that won that night was “My Heart Will Go On,” from “Titanic,” which Celine Dion performed in a ball gown, wearing the “Titanic” necklace, amid stage fog and Pan flutes.) Smith also tended to look depressed. But his music, so full of pain, is gorgeous, and its gorgeousness manages to outdo its anguish, which is saying something. It can rock, be forceful, sound happy. The lovely melodies and deceptively complex structures go in unexpected, satisfying directions, then resolve themselves, and resolve us. It is not music that says “Aw, fuck this.”

On Saturday, the host, Rhett Miller—the tall, Texan Old 97’s front man—started by introducing the film director Jem Cohen. “This is ‘Lucky Three,’ a film that I made back in 1996,” Cohen said. “Elliott was a real pleasure. He was shy and very funny. And he sure knew how to place a microphone.” The room darkened. Onscreen, there were images of Portland in the rain—puddles, bridges—and then Smith himself, shaggy-haired, lean, sharp, and laughing. It cut to him in an apartment, acoustic guitar in hand, behind a well-placed mic. He wore a rumpled yellow oxford. He played the opening notes of “Between the Bars,” from “Either/Or.” “Drink up baby, stay up all night,” he sang. “With the things you could do / You won’t, but you might.” The crowd was silent, watching the screen. A woman wiped her eyes. People were expecting live versions of Smith’s songs, a rare thing in a post-Smith world; now here was Smith himself, perhaps more than they’d anticipated.

“Aw, you guys, how sweet was that?” Rhett Miller said. He introduced “a band called Meat Industry—I have it on good authority that they hitchhiked from Boston.” Three young women, a floppy-haired boy, and a front woman of Smith’s generation, wearing a pink T-shirt that said “God Bless Richard Lloyd,” came onstage. “I’m J. J.,” she said—J. J. Gonson, the former manager of Smith’s band Heatmiser. “My story about this song, ‘No Name #1,’ is that I co-wrote it,” she said. “I wrote the chords, and they’re the easiest in the world.” The younger women appeared to be focussing intently. One of them, a vocalist, wore what looked like a C.B.G.B.’s T-shirt. On careful inspection, it turned out to say G.R.C.B.

“Girls Rock Camp every year!” Oliver yelled, pumping his fist. He had longish hair and a lot of moxie, and appeared to be about fourteen.

Miller introduced Ashley Welch, Smith’s sister, a kind-eyed woman with a pixie haircut. She looked like a smaller version of Smith. She had organized the concert, and three others that week, in L.A., Portland, and Austin; proceeds went to local charities. “It’s really special for me, after almost ten years of not hearing these songs performed live—thank you for being here and celebrating him,” she said. The concert’s proceeds were going to New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth. “This is near and dear to my life,” Welch said. “I’m queer. Elliott was the first person I told. He was always super sweet about queers, which is why I called him first.”

The next performer, Young Hines, had driven all night, from Nashville. “I can guarantee you everybody here tonight, when they agreed to do this, I bet you they thought his chords were a lot easier,” he said. He sang “No Name #3.” “Any Chris Thile fans?” he asked. Yes, quite a few. Thile, the affable, genre-hopping mandolin god, bobbed onstage—smiling, nodding, taking his place to the left of Hines. They played a rocking, urgent “Needle in the Hay”—with almost a hint of the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man” in its propulsiveness. Hines’s vocals added some righteous anger.

Then: the nineties busker and indie icon Mary Lou Lord, and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Annabelle. Lord had bobbed hair and wore large amber sunglasses, like a spy going incognito. Annabelle, cheerful and calm, sat on a stool and held a guitar on her lap. She had glasses and long, curly hair; she smiled at her mother and at the crowd, revealing braces.

“She’s, like, fine,” Lord said. “I’m, like, so nervous. Annabelle’s going to sing, because I have this dysphonia thing.” Lord played the beginning of “St. Ides Heaven.”

“Everything is exactly right / When I walk around here drunk every night,” Annabelle sang. Her voice was clear, her delivery unaffected. People cheered. Lord began to harmonize, sweetly. When Annabelle sang “ ’cause everyone is a fucking pro,” she laughed a little—she’d just said the F-word.

“This is such a wonderful night. I’m so happy to be here,” Lord said. She turned to Annabelle. “You’re so awesome and I love you so much.” More cheering. “She is like, the biggest Elliott Smith fan on earth.” Lord played the opening notes of Big Star’s delicate, heartbreaking “Thirteen,” to much whooping. Annabelle, and then the crowd, sang. “Won’t you let me walk you home from school / won’t you let me meet you at the pool.” In a summer of heightened Big Star-Chris Bell-Elliott Smith appreciation, it was striking to hear a fourteen-year-old girl sing “Thirteen.” Lord harmonized on “Won’t you tell your dad get off my back / Tell him what we said about ‘Paint It Black.’ “ The crowd sang, too; fists were pumped during the words “rock and roll is here to stay.”

Welch came back onstage. “There’s a bit of a family feel here tonight,” she said. She said that she’d seen Lord play at a Lilith Fair in Denver when she was pregnant with Annabelle. The sculptor Marc Swanson, an old friend of Elliott’s, came onstage, and told a story with the punch line “So, as you can imagine, it was fairly challenging, but for a few shows I was a dancer for Elliott Smith.”

The singer-songwriter Jerry Fuentes and Chris Thile played “Easy Way Out”; Thile, beaming, did a rather shredding mandolin solo. When the song ended, someone screamed, “More mandolin!” Thile played the cascading opening notes of “Everything Means Nothing to Me.” Here, and all night, Thile looked delighted to be playing Smith’s music. As a performer, he has an open expression and a sunny demeanor; the joy on his face while he sang the words “everything means nothing to me,” over and over, was something to behold.

“Please welcome to the stage Bob Dorough,” Miller said—the eighty-nine-year-old composer behind “Schoolhouse Rock.” Dorough walked onstage slowly, smiling and waving his fists in the air. “Wasn’t I surprised to learn that Elliott Smith had recorded one of my songs!” he said. He sat at a piano and played “Figure 8.&#8221 It had a nice, eerie, foreboding, somewhat Smithian piano melody. Dorough sang:

Figure eight is two times four Four times four is two times eight If you skate upon thin ice You’d be wise if you thought twice Before you made another single move!

After more stories, more songs, Pat Sansone, of Wilco, an earnest presence with a mod mop of blond hair, sang one of Smith’s best-loved songs, “Waltz #2.” The performance—vocals, guitar, no percussion—was powerful and heartfelt. “I’m never going to know you now, but I’m going to love you anyhow,” the crowd sang with him, quietly. The quiet seemed to come from respect. When the song ended, Sansone wiped away tears. “Wow. That was beautiful. Thank you so much,” he said.

Chris Thile skipped onstage, even more buoyant than before. “I never got to meet Elliott Smith, which bums me out most days,” he said. “The way I was exposed to his music first is a little odd. Do you remember that movie with Ben Stiller and Ed Norton and the girl from ‘Dharma & Greg’? I went to Tower Records to look for a different song from that soundtrack, and I didn’t know anyone’s names, and I thought, Well, maybe it’s this guy Elliott Smith. ‘Figure 8’ had just come out, and I put it on in this little listening booth. And I had my mind utterly blown. This is its first song.” He played the opening melody of “Son of Sam,” and then sang with gusto; the crowd provided “la la la”s. He added some mandolin fireworks and filigree; the audience clapped along.

“How badass is this chord right here?” Thile asked. “He does this”—he played the opening again—“and you’re like, O.K., I think I know where it’s going, and then this, and then this!” He played a note that veered off sideways. “Mind blown!” Thile yelled.

David Garza came onstage. Thile went on, “He also double-tracked guitar and vocals on almost every song. It sounded so cool.” They played “Somebody That I Used to Know,” in unison, on guitar and mandolin, and sang together: in effect, a live double-track. The crowd joined in, making it a zillion-track.

“What a beautiful night, guys,” Miller said. The night’s big collective of performers and friends descended from stairs to the right of the stage. Thile and Miller, and Ashley Welch, and the kids, Annabelle and Oliver, were toward the center. Their moms, Lord and Gonson, stood toward the wings, their arms around each other. “Hey, Oliver, how old are you?” Miller asked.

“Twelve years old!” Oliver said.

“Holy shit,” Miller said. He counted off. “One, two, three, four!”

The final song: “Happiness.” Violin, standup bass, keyboards, mandolin, guitar, a stage, and an audience full of vocalists, singing:

What I used to be Will pass away And then you’ll see That all I want now Is happiness for you and me

There was sustained cheering, and then the lights came on. Oliver ran along the front of the stage, slapping audience members’ hands.